More about befriending centers

• The main aim of the centers is to give emotional support to people when they are suicidal. The centers also alleviate misery, loneliness, despair and depression by listening to anyone who feels they have nowhere else to turn.

• The people who run the centers - befrienders - are volunteers who have all been specially trained. The work is non-political and non-religious, and volunteers do not try to impose their convictions on anyone. They simply listen.

• The fact that someone has been in contact with a center - whether by telephone, letter, email or in a face-to-face meeting - is strictly confidential. So too is everything that the person tells a befriender. Some callers prefer to remain anonymous - and that's fine.

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